AMUSEMENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 354, 4 April 1910, Page 8

AMUSEMENTS.

i BESSES 0' TH' BARN BAND.

The Besses o' th' Bam Band is again area ting a great sensation throughout New Zealand. It gave seven performances at Dunedin to houses crowded to suffocation on each occasion. The season concluded with open-air performances at which no fewer than 20,000 people paid for admission, and in the .smaller town of Invercargill two concerts were given with the same mariced results. The Otago Daily Times, in referring to the performances of oie band who appear, says:—"Great things were expected, for the band's reputation had come on ahead, but the realisa-; tion eclipsed all anticipatory joys. The instruments, each and every one perfectly manipulated, combined to produce a grand organ tone that set every listener's ears tingling with pleasure, and evoked storms' of applause. It was a, revelation in the possibilities of band music, and must be educative to our 10-, cal bandsmen as it is enjoyable to the general public. All the throbbing elements of life were in the enchanted music that poured from the instruments of ductile brass. Probably few in the audience would ever have imagined the womanly tenderness of tone, soft as a shy lover's caress, that thos'e wonderful instrumentalists seemed to arrive at so easily, or the clash that bespoke of j the warrior, the dreamy excursions in fairyland of the .poet, the ardent aspirations of the religious enthusiast. All the language of the heart, the brain, and the settled s'earchings of the soul, found audible expression. Brazen instruments, indeed! They were the throats of angels pouring out the beatitudes. Criticism was disarmed; one could only lie back in one's seat and enjoy it. Drinking in with one's ears the virgin purity of the soprano, tUe exquisitely rounded brass' noting, the magnificence of the individual parts, the listener only wanted to let the divine mu-.ie saturate through his mental "make-up." The article referred to goes on to pr-iisc the personality of the conductor, Mr Owen, most enthusiastically. The Besses'o' th' Barn Rand has created such a sensation that every town in New Zealand is crying out for performances, and as a cons'cqnenee of its success, the Australian tour will not commeik-e until well after May. The tour is again under Messrs' J. and H. TaitV dived ion. The New Plymouth season opens at the Theatre Royal on Saturday evening next at 8.30. and continues at the Bace course on Monday afternoon, and Theatre Royal on Monday evening. Evening prices are fixed at 3s (reserved), 2s and Is. (Jpen air: Cleneral admission. Is.

I THE CORXISH PIXTE. This extraordinary little man whoso perfect proportions are compressed into *nch a diminutive limit will make his first appearance in Xcn Plymouth toI day in the premises lately occupied as I the Dominion Tea Pioom-, Devon-street. He measures 2.V/,. inches liiirh. Tlip Pixie has two layers of (pptli in hotli hws, ( JTe smokes cigarettes, anil enjoys himself in the same wav that most men dn, takinjr ordinary food and sleeping twelve hours out of everv twentv-fonr. Up will receive visitors dailv dnrins thp week from 11.30 a.m. till 12.30, from .1.30 till 5.15, and from 7.30 till 0.13.